Brain Drain

Iranians are known worldwide as talented and smart people, especially in the fields of science and technology. They reside in most parts of the world and are employed by top American and European universities and companies.These universities and companies use the expertise of these Iranian scientists in gaining economic and scientific benefits. In other words, these expatriates are helping other countries overcome their technological, economic and educational problems.Every year, developed countries allocate millions of dollars to accelerate the immigration of internationally educated professionals to their countries and use their skills and specializations in different fields for the welfare of their own communities.Last week Alia Sabur, a 19-year-old Iranian-American, was declared the world’s youngest professor in history by the Guinness Book of World Records. Alia broke the 1717 record set by a student of physicist Isaac Newton, Colin Maclaurin.There are many examples of such talented Iranians bringing honor to their country of origin.In 2007, three Iranians were among the list of top 100 living geniuses compiled by a panel of six experts in creativity and innovation from Creators Synectics, a global consultant firm.Engineer Ali Javan, physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed and biological anthropologist Pardis Sabeti were respectively ranked 12th, 32nd and 49th of this list.In 1975, Professor Javan (born 1926) received from the Optical Society of America its most prestigious honor, the Fredric Ives Medal, with a citation that praised him for “producing an optical device (the gas laser) of unparalleled applicability to scientific research“. In 1993, he received the Albert Einstein World Award of Science. Arkani-Hamed (born 1972) is a leading theoretical physicist with interests in high-energy physics, string theory and cosmology. He officially joined Harvard’s faculty in the fall of 2002. In the summer of 2005 while at Harvard, he won the ’Phi Beta Kappa’ award for teaching excellence.Sabeti (born 1975) is an evolutionary geneticist, who developed an algorithm that helped establish the effects of genetics on the evolution of human diseases. He is an assistant professor in the Center for Systems Biology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.So why Iran does not employ these talented people to help develop the country in the scientific and technological fields? Unfortunately, the number of educated young Iranians trying to leave the country appears to have increased in the past years judging by the numbers sitting for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam--a requirement for immigration to countries like Canada and Australia. And the cost to Iran of not stemming this brain drain--one government estimate put it at nearly $40 billion a year. Iran tops the world in terms of brain drain. That’s the conclusion of the International Monetary Fund, which recently surveyed 61 countries. The IMF says every year more than 150,000 educated Iranians leave their country in the hope of finding better educational, working and living conditions abroad.In fact, Iran is educating millions of its youth to serve the advanced countries.The reality is that the scientific and economic gap between Iran, as a third-world nation, and advanced or `North’ countries is wide and prospects for filling this distance in the near future appear dim. If more research facilities are provided and livelihood problems of researchers are seriously addressed in a way that they would feel free to produce science and new ideas inside Iran, brain drain will slow down. These facilities, combined with the inherent interest of Iranians in family bonds, will certainly act as a brake to dissuade some from leaving the country. However, the trend will not grind to a complete halt. Therefore, the officials should take measures for promoting the social and scientific status of scientists. They must also clear the way for researchers, who are determined to leave the country and continue their studies in other countries, to establish a kind of human rapport and cooperate with their homeland in future.

War on Terror or State Terrorism

The United State in past years showed that the end justifies the means--good or bad.

It uses every means to justify its imperialist policies around the world like sponsoring terrorism, covert and military operations, torturing, violating human rights, biased sanctions against countries and so on.
Since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Americans encouraged former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, to invade Iran and open the way for implementing US policies in the Middle East and installing a puppet government in Iran.
The Bush administration also struggles to use the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council to pressure the Islamic Republic to back down on its peaceful nuclear activities and recognize the Israeli regime.
The US congressional leaders agreed late last year to Bush’s funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership, The New Yorker magazine reported in an article on Sunday.
The article by reporter Seymour Hersh centers around a highly classified Presidential Funding signed by Bush which by US law must be made known to Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders and ranking members of the intelligence committees.
The report confirmed the protests of Iranian officials that the US is sponsoring operations of terrorist groups inside the Islamic Republic aimed at killing and kidnapping innocent Iranian people.
It also unearthed that the US backs dissidents’ struggling to foment a “velvet revolution” in Iran to topple the Islamic Republic.
According to Hersh’s report, the $400 million funding is benefiting the Jundollah, a vicious organization backed by Al-Qaeda, which kidnapped 16 Iranian policemen and transferred them to Pakistan, killing four of the hostages last week.
Jundollah, which operates in Iran’s eastern Sistan-Baluchestan province and Pakistan’s Balochistan, has carried out a number of attacks against Iranian civilians as well as high-profile government and security officials.
The terrorist group is widely known to be secretly encouraged, advised and funded by the US intelligence agency, the CIA.
In a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini suggested that Jundollah terrorists are supported by Washington.
“Now look at ABC television, openly interviewing Abdolmalek Rigi, the ringleader of the Jundollah terrorist group. And in Iraq, the terrorist group of the hypocrites, [the Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO)], who are on the terrorist lists in western countries, especially in the US, are active under the protection of US troops
in Iraq,” said the diplomat.
In May, Iran sent a formal protest note to Washington for spying on Iran’s nuclear activities. The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned Switzerland’s ambassador in Tehran, who looks after US interests, to deliver a “strong protest over the hostile intervention of the US government”.
Tehran also had unearthed a number of spy networks aiming to infiltrate Iran and carry out sabotage actions in the west, southwest and center of the country.
Iran has complained in recent years that a series of bomb blasts in the border provinces of Khuzestan, Kurdestan and West Azarbaijan were carried out by forces backed by the US forces in Iraq.
The New Yorker’s report confirmed that US support for the dissident groups could prompt a violent crackdown by Iran, which could give the Bush administration a reason to intervene.
But the US official should know that Iran will defend its territorial integrity by all means, as Commander of Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corps Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari warned that in defense of Iran, all options are on the table.
The article clearly shows that the American government’s so-called “war on terror” is a hollow propaganda and they only pursue their hostile policies in the region which include oil and security for the Israeli regime.
Armed intervention and other direct or indirect forms of interference threatening the sovereignty and the political independence of states are against international laws.
So, Iran as a member of the United Nations should lodge a protest to the international bodies against the hostile move and urge the UN to condemn the terror-sponsoring country.